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We are down to the top four teams in the ongoing PBA Philippine Cup, and quite frankly, this should be every fan's dream come true.

Ginebra San Miguel, San Miguel Beer, Talk N Text, and Purefoods Star are arguably the most talented and popular teams in the league today, each with huge and faithful followings. To say that the semifinals will be a sure box office heaven for the PBA is an understatement.

That said, let us take a look at the prospects of each team in these semis:

San Miguel Beer ___

Conference Record: 10-1

How Did They Get Here: They were, quite simply, the top team throughout the conference. That they might not have played at 100% throughout the conference is understandable, given their superiority in talent and depth over every other team, but make no mistake, when the Beermen turn it on, it's usually curtains for their opponent.

Why They Will Make the Finals: Are you kidding me? Seriously. They have arguably the best player ever in the history of Philippine basketball in June Mar Fajardo, the strong and agile 6-foot-10 Cebuano center who is on his way to his third straight MVP award, and perhaps also yet another championship for his Beermen.

As mentioned they not only have talent and depth, but they have it at every position. Fajardo, dominant as he already is, also enjoys the luxury of having the likes of Alex Cabagnot, Arwind Santos, and Marcio Lassiter for teammates. They are so deep and talented they could afford to waive the injured but equally talented Chris Lutz. The likes of Gaby Espinas, Ronald Tubid, and Chris Ross are their rotation guys for cryin' out loud.

Their record speaks for itself, and right now the only ones who can beat them are they themselves.

Why They Might Not Make the Finals: Only an Act of God could prevent the Beermen from taking the Philippine Cup Title. Or overconfidence of the killing kind.

If there is one thing that kills done-deal championships, it is always good old fashioned hubris. Maybe Coach Leo Isaac decides to start newcomer RR Garcia and keeps him on the floor longer than he ought to. Maybe Santos and Lassiter decide to take more three-pointer attmepts than they should. Maybe Tubid decides to sashay and do his shimmy one too many times.

Talk N Text ___

Conference Record: 6-5

How Did They Get Here: Barely. They are only one game above the .500 mark, and at one time it looked like they might miss the playoffs. But they caught just enough breaks to make it this far, including drawing GlobalPort in the playoffs, a team they could handle at this critical stage of the conference. TNT however will need to pull out a few more rabbits out of the hat to return to the Finals.

Why They Will Make the Finals: Like San Miguel they have some talent and depth on their roster. They still have the best pointguard in Asia. That's right, Asia, not just this country, but the entire continent. Jayson Castro may be in the twilight of his career, but the man they call the Blue can still play the game at the highest levels. Just look at the weekly highlight reels and he is still there.

Aside from the Blur TNT still has a few dependable stalwarts led by the mutli-talented Ranidel De Ocampo. "Hodor" as he is affectionately called by some teammates and fans (after his hilarious role in one of their company's TV commercials) remains one of the top inside-outside players in the league, and is arguably the second best stretch 4 after Reynel Hugnatan.

Rosario and Tautuaa need to grow up plenty fast though, and De Ocampo and Williams better help them along, because they will be needed up front in their semis.

Why They Might Not Make the Finals: Let's face it, this really is you daddy's Talk N Text, and they sometimes show it at the most inopportune times. Imagine the average age of the core players of Coach Nash Racela, and they are essentially the same crew that was winning under Chot Reyes some five or six years ago.

In the end their series will be determined 90% by how Castro plays. Even if all the other key players show up, as long as Castro isn't up to his usual high par, TNT will have a very short series.

I then recalled that a coach from a well-known high school basketball program actually admitted to me something that has long been making the rounds in local high school basketball: Yes, he admitted, when a recruit comes to their program, and that recruit is either just the right age or a little younger for his curriculum year, they make him repeat a curriculum year and max out his age eligibility for junior division play.

He went on to explain that this wasn't done willy-nilly, that there were practical reasons for doing so: First, their program wanted to maximize the recruit's available playing years, especially if he is a transfer who has to sit out a year to establish residency anyway. Let's say a recruit already finished Grade 8 in his previous school, and he was only say 13 years old, or a little young for a Grade 8 student. When he goes to their program, they talk the recruit into repeating Grade 8, and make that repeat year his residency year. That way they will still have the recruit for four playing years, from Grade 9 to Grade 12. By the time he is in his last year of junior ball he will already be 18, in this given case. There were even times they made recruits repeat two years if they were really young.

Second, they recognized early on that a player who is older than average in junior ball can more easily take on younger players, even if those younger players are objectively more athletic and more talented than he is. Forget about the difference between a 17-year old and an 18-year old; imagine instead the difference between a 15-year old and a 17-year old. Only in the rarest of cases can a younger player whip an older player at the high school level.

Third, there is of course that adjustment period needed for a player to get used to more organized, more regimented basketball, especially if he came from an unstructured or barely structured background, like say if he came from the countryside and there really wasn't a regular varsity tournament where he comes from. It'll take at least a year even for the most talented and smartest high school player to get used to a more rigorous system than the one he was used to.

The bottom line, the coach therefore emphasized, is that it makes sense to use older players in high school basketball, just so long as you do not break the rules. If the rules of your tournament allow you to play high school ball up to age 19, then the perfect team, as far as this coach goes, is one where all of the players are 19, or at least half of them are 19 and the other half are 17 to 18. Pit them even against a team of sky walking, slam dunking, running and gunning younger players, and he will put even money on his older team every time.

"Diyan na lumalabas nga 'yung big question: Kapag nakakaita ka ng player sa Juniors na obvious naman sa itsura pa lang na mas matanda kesa sa mga kalaban niya, at nilalamon niya mga kalaban niya, hindi ba dapat lang naman ganun ang mangyari? So maybe what we are looking at is not an elite player who will be a sure PBA star in the future. Maybe what we are really looking at is nothing more than an older kid beating the shit out of younger kids, in a manner of speaking of course," expounded Mr Libog.

There is an old saying, "age doesn't matter", which means that age does not necessarily have to factor in to the philosophical and practical matters of life. We of course do not necessarily mean here things such as age restrictions on marriage and family relations, voting and suffrage, etc.

With that out of the way, we go back to my favorite interlocutor, and source of many a good meal on him, Mr Libog.

In our most recent lunch together with Snorgy at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants, his topic for the day was none other than age and talent, particularly in high school basketball.

I explained that I tried twice and failed twice, in my junior and senior years in high school. I said that if in my senior year I still wasn't good enough to make the UAAP team then I'll simply never be good enough, ever. Heck, a few guys from lower batches were just having their way with me during the tryouts, and I was even playing Ginebra-level dirty just to have a chance, and it still didn't work.

I said I never bothered back then, simply because I knew there was just no way I was going to beat out the older, tougher players already on the team or trying out. As an example, I said Richie Ticzon and Rico Santiago were both just a year ahead of me, and those two had to wait their turn to make the UAAP team. What bloody chance did I have?

Just as a background, ABS CBN came out with an online article last week that stated that some questions had arisen regarding the true age of their star player, 5-9 guard Encho Serrano. Serrano had led his Adamson Baby Falcons to a pristine 7-0 sweep of the first round of eliminations in UAAP Season 79's junior division, and he emerged as the leading MVP contender in the high school ranks.

Serrano may be a totally new entity to most UAAP junior division fans, but Mr Libog and I already saw him in action about a year and a half ago in both the Buddha Care tournament and the Fil Oil summer league. Serrano at that time was still with the Mapua Red Robins of the NCAA, although he never got to see action in the NCAA tournament proper.

Serrano, Rob Junsay, and Mike Enriquez formed a heck of a backcourt for the Red Robins and even beat Jolo Mendoza, Gian mamuyac, and the rest of the mighty Ateneo Blue Eaglets in the Buddha Care semifinals. Mr Libog and I liked him but didn't exactly love him the way we did with the likes of Mark Cruz, Roi Sumang, and Jio Jalalon. The reason? Serrano is like a smaller Bong Alvarez, likes to jump over everything, doesn't really show much in terms of talent or skill, just has a stud body.

Then he dropped off the radar and I didn't even hear his name in the NCAA Juniors.

Then he pops up in Adamson. It never even occurred to me to look him up when the news articles for the UAAP Juniors was all about how strong Adamson had suddenly become behind this newcomer named Serrano. Mr Libog texted me that it was the same Serrano we saw with Mapua.

And now we have this little controversy as to Serrano's eligibility, centering on his true age.

To local basketball fans, he may not ring a bell. But in the international stage, Dionisio (Chito) Calvo stood tall.

The late Calvo is lone Filipino who is enshrined in the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Hall of Fame.

Calvo was among the first batch of 43 personages to be inducted into the FIBA Hall in March 2007.

Calvo was one of the 24 posthumous inductees under the ?contributors? category.

Calvo was the head coach of the Philippine Olympic team that ranked fifth during the 1936 Berlin Games. The games marked the first time that basketball competitions were held. The fifth-place finish remains the highest ranking by an Asian country in Olympic men?s basketball history.
Calvo also piloted the PH national team to 12th place in the 1948 London Olympics.

Likewise, he mentored the Filipinos to the men?s basketball gold during the inaugural Asian Games in New Delhi, India in 1951.

As an organizer, Calvo initiated the formation of the Asian Basketball Confederation in 1960. The ABC has since been renamed as the FIBA Asia Championship.

According to the official FIBA book ?The Basketball World,? the idea of putting up the ABC was first brought up in 1958 in Tokyo by basketball leaders from various Asian countries competing in the Third Asian Games, a multi-sport quadrennial event that included basketball.

An urgent need was felt to set up a regional controlling body for basketball in Asia and a temporary committee under the chairmanship of Calvo was constituted to look into this possibility.

Through the efforts of Calvo, the first Asian Conference and Basketball Championship for Men was initiated in January 1960 in Manila.

Along with Pakistan, they also attended the Conference at which the draft constitution of the ABC was adopted and the participating countries admitted as members.

Call it homecourt advantage, the Philippines romped away with the first ABC title in 1960, winning all of its nine assignments.

Carlos Badion was named the tournament?s Most Valuable Player.

The ABC was not officially founded until the second Asian Conference and Basketball Championship for Men was stage in Taipei in November 1963.

Attended by representatives from nine countries, the ABA constitution and bylaws were ratified during the gathering. Officials such as then-Philippine Senator Ambrosio Padilla, president, and Calvo, secretary general, were elected to lead the organization.

The Conference additionally resolved to hold men?s championships biennially, while avoiding the even-numbered years wherein the Summer Olympic Games and Asian Games were staged.

In the local basketball scene, Calvo also organized the post-graduate Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA) league in 1938.

The MICAA, of course, was the precursor of the professional Philippine Basketball Association PBA).

A side note: The late Gonzalo (Lito) Puyat II was once a candidate for the FIBA Hall of fame but the former two-term FIBA president (1976-84) failed to make the grade.

Danny Biasone, the owner-president of the Syracuse Nationals (the forerunners of the Philadelphia 76ers) during the early years of the National Basketball Association, was credited for the creation of the 24-second shot clock rule in the National Basketball Association.

The Italian-born Biasone was turned off by the constant stalling tactics that were being employed by the teams during the games played in the 1950s.

The dull and farcical games had to stop and so Biasone convinced his fellow NBA club owners to adopt a shot clock rule for games starting with the 1954-55 season.

How did the shot clock come down to 24 seconds?

Said Biasone: ?I looked at the box scores from the games I enjoyed, games where they didn?t screw around and stall. I noticed each team took about 60 shots. That meant 120 shots per game. So I took 48 minutes ? 2,880 seconds ? and divided that by 120 shots. The result was 24 seconds per shot.?

Together with Nats general manager Leo Ferris, Biasone developed the 24-second shot clock.

The novel rule prevented the teams from holding the ball without any restrictions and forced them to hoist a field goal within 24 seconds of gaining ball possession.

The rules change also would mean a faster game and higher scoring.

True enough, the NBA game became fast-paced and the offense perked up with the introduction of the 24-second shot clock during the 1954-55 wars.

The league?s scoring average leapfrogged to 93.1 points per game (from 79.5 ppg) and the clubs combined to hit .385 from the field (up from .372 in the previous season).

From 150.7 field-goal attempts per game in 1953-54, the two teams combined for 172.8 floor shots in every game during the following season.
The 24-second shot clock rule made its NBA debut on October 30, 1954, with the Rochester Royals (the predecessors of the Sacramento Kings) knocking off the Boston Celtics, 98-95.

Ironically, Biasone?s Nats were the biggest winners in 1954-55, snaring the NBA championship with a 4-3 decision over the Fort Wayne (now Detroit) Pistons in a seven-game Finals that saw the home team emerge triumphant each time.

Biasone died in 1992 but he will always be remembered as the creator of the 24-second shot clock rule.

In 2000, Biasone was posthumously inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame under the contributor?s category.